Mischa Delweeg: “Bregantina”

February 21, 2009 by admin
Filed under dance, dance: acid house, dance: electro, dance: funk

Mischa Delweeg (i.e., Del’vig) is a Moscow DJ who – through his studies – now enjoys well-established connections with the city of Dublin. This week he has released a new EP by the name of “Bregantina”; it can be downloaded for free courtesy of Substrakt Records.

He maintains productive connections with Russia, however, and – according to his published timetables – performs more often in his homeland.

Moving from club to club – not only in Moscow and Dublin, but also in neighboring cities such as Prague – he has built up a sizable fan-base for whom he fashions a dancefloor style he defines as “hypnotic. It’s based on complex and contemporary sounds that integrate unusual rhythms and dark, sensual harmonies.”

Delweeg claims that his previous mixes, available online, have enjoyed as many as 30,000 hits. To boot, 500 copies of his 2008 CD “Kinesthesia” (downloadable here) allegedly sold out in three weeks. These facts, maintain his PR materials, “confirm there’s a rising star in the music firmament.”

Despite the keen sense of genre on this EP, drawing upon both deep and funk grooves, Delweeg said in a recent interview that he was raised on his father’s record collection, most of which was not at all intended for the dancefloor! It showed a strong bias towards prog-rock, in particular Genesis. Delweeg himself, perhaps as a consequence of this family context – i.e., because of his father’s “mountains of vinyl” – was soon dispatched to music school.

According to his own memories, he was inspired by DJ-ing as early as 13 years old, when he acquired the Soviet brand of turntable called “Estonia”; he wired that up to a second turntable – an old model by Technics. Slowly something resembling a DJ’s equipment was assembled, albeit from a multitude of places and manufacturers. Only when he got to Dublin as a young student eight years later was he blessed with the chance to use normal equipment.

Traveling back and forth between the cities of Moscow and Dublin, he found it hard to please two very different audiences. Here, in the capacity of composer for the new EP, the issue of varying audiences becomes even more complicated, since “Bregantina” is available to be downloaded, heard, and judged by anybody… anywhere.

He says – perhaps as a result of this more disconcerting, virtual aspect to net-releases: “If I had to choose between live sets and writing music, then of course I’d say the main thing is performing live.” That’s not not exactly a ringing endorsement for the EP!

Delweeg explains further: “Live work is where my experience helps. It’s a chance to meet people, too. I consider composition really important, but since I’m basically a shy person, I’d be a little scared to play my own stuff before an audience!”

He’s not – consequently – fond of the bold, brash nature of PR work: “I hate all those press releases! The people who write them for me are a necessary part of my career, sadly… you can’t get by without promo-work… After all, once the ‘material’ [for a release] is ready, it’s no longer just a track or a single DJ; it’s an idea, a concept, the promotion, posters, videos… an entire product.” He admits, with equal sadness, that after those peripheral, irritating obligations are over with, “they – nonetheless – really do help to single you out from thousands of competitors.”

At the end of the day, it’s Delweeg’s concerns about these silly bells and whistles of today’s music business that led him to produce the almost anonymous, fuss-free “Bregantina” EP: “The basic idea was as follows… Nowadays everybody is deep into some kind of fancy concept or other, all kinds of psychedelic stuff, for example. The EP and its Substrakt label are designed to represent everything real. It’s the complete opposite of all abstractions. It’s real music. These are real emotions – and that’s all I have to say.”

We have no more questions: the man clearly means business.